Robot 6

Digital primed for greater influx of new readers in 2013

As we finish off Year Five of digital comics (depending on how you count things), the distribution method is positioned to bring in a continually growing sector of new readers.

comiXology, the market leader, is ending 2012 as the third highest-grossing app of the year for the iPad. That’s up from the 10th spot last year, which is even more remarkable when you consider virtually no other app made an appearance on both lists. I can’t imagine that could be accomplished strictly with purchases from direct-market customers crossing over to digital. And when you take into account that direct-market sales have also been improving, that couldn’t happen even if every reader in comics got a big raise this year and was buying both digital and print copies. Worst-case scenario, we’re winning back lapsed readers. But mixed within those two groups (current and lapsed/returning readers) has to be a third, even if only a small percentage at this time. It seems too good to be true but it’s becoming more and more likely that the elusive new reader is being reached.

Marvel is also working to put its in-house subscription-based digital comics reader Marvel Digital Comics Unlimited into a new format that will work on the iPhone, iPad and other tablets, another great move to make comics just that much more accessible to potential new readers using different technology. This model was innovated in the early ’00s by CrossGen Comics, which saw pre-order sales increase after the launch of its Comics on the Web reader. About a decade later, it’s finally becoming accepted theory that digital can work as a feeder to print. Or, to adopt the buzzword DC used at every opportunity during the New 52 goodwill tour, digital is “additive.”

Manga made huge leaps this year, a complete about-face from its stubborn resistance to change. VIZ Media, the largest manga publisher in North America, canceled the popular anthology Shonen Jump, replacing it with the digital-only Shonen Jump Alpha, which embraced an accelerated release schedule to finally eliminate the translation lag for some of the most popular manga today. An app accompanied the ambitious and welcome move.

The final piece is having strong content, a reason for new readers to sample and stay. It seems comiXology announces new titles and publishers to digital at least every month. An ever-increasing variety is crucial, so it’s good news to see new distribution deals for comic-strip perennials like Doonesbury and Big Nate, and indie classics like Too Much Coffee Man. Digital debuts are a great incentive, and now almost every major publisher produces some kind of digital-first material. Perhaps most notable is the digital-only publisher Monkeybrain Comics (or digital-only so far). The company excels at putting out accessible and entertaining stories that look great on digital. But leading the way on creating content for digital is Thrillbent.com. While it’s great to be able to read old issues of Detective Comics on my iPad, most comics weren’t made with computers or mobile devices in mind, so they don’t always read as fluidly that way. Mark Waid and his team are creating brand-new stories that live and breathe online while retaining the very essence and strengths of comics. Their first stories just launched on comiXology, opening them up to people who may not have heard about them or given them a chance yet.

The next big move is to incorporate more webcomics into these digital-distribution networks. The upcoming app Comic Chameleon looks like it may answer that. comiXology and other digital distributors would do well to sell digital versions of print collections of successful webcomics, if a single comic-strip format doesn’t synch up to their infrastructure. Of course, that would require webcomic creators’ participation, but I don’t exactly see Randall Munroe or Ryan North or Matthew Inman bothering to go through the Submit process. Some outreach is called for to get the ball rolling. Hopefully we’ll see some movement in the coming year so we can continue to take down the walls dividing our little comic book fiefdoms and encourage more audience crossover.

While sales are increasing both in print and digital, we need to make sure they are quality sales to long term readers, and not unsustainable sales seen during the ’90s boom. High quality stories, accessibility, wide availability and audience crossover are the strongest ways to keep this positive trend going.

richard

The problem with a lot of those facts and figures are they’re specific to certain titles, and not the industry in general. People are convinced digital is the way of the future, but really it’s just part of it. The Mp3 was supposed to replace the CD, and yet they’re still produced and bought all over the world. The biggest thing stopping digital’s domination of the market is that every company is selling their digital comics through a different portal, so if you read Marvel, DC and Image, you sometimes have to go to or at least through a couple of different “shops” to get your comics.

And of course there are people like me who just don’t like reading digital comics, who aren’t just “old timers refusing to accept the future” (i’m 24) and will never shift the entirety of their collection to digital releases.

Earth-2 Chad

Richard, as JP notes, all three of the publishers you cite make their comics available through Comixology’s app. (You can also get them through publisher-specific apps, but once Marvel finally made purchases sync between both, I’ve never seen the point of that.)

Out of curiosity, JP, what is it that makes Dark Horse’s app so inferior in your opinion?

JP

I’ve found it performs very badly on the iPad – frequently failing to load up parts of store properly and after a minute or so of loading proclaiming “No matching comics found” and then crashing.

Also, I’ve found their version of panel-by-panel viewing to be substandard when compared to ComiXology’s Guided View and that’s my preferred way to read.

And since they also don’t seem to offer any HD versions of their comics (at least, not of the comics I’ve bought from them – I may be wrong that they don’t offer any) that means panel-by-panel viewing often leaves you reading pixellated text.

Corey Blake

Karl Harris

Unfortunately Comixology is not available on the UK amazon store for Kindle Fire. This is killing me right now as I am stuck buying digital direct from the comixology website and getting rountinely stung on transaction fees when only pulling a few copies per month. It’s frustrating to say the least.